I just wanted to let you know that the University of Florida’s Honey Bee Research and Extension Lab (HBREL) is hosting the 1st annual Florida Bee Research Symposium July 15-16, 2015. It will be located in Gainesville, Florida at Austin Cary Memorial Forest Conference Center. Wednesday (July 15th) will be focused on native bee research and the following day will be all about honey bees. BIP’s own Dennis vanEngelsdorp will be one of our keynote speakers so if you are at all interested in BIP and are in the vicinity I urge to attend! Please follow the link for more information and to reserve a seat now. See you soon!

]]>http://beeinformed.org/2015/07/july-15-16-university-of-florida-honey-bee-labs-1st-annual-research-symposium/feed/2Bears and Bees in the Sunshine Statehttp://beeinformed.org/2015/06/bears-and-bees-in-the-sunshine-state/
http://beeinformed.org/2015/06/bears-and-bees-in-the-sunshine-state/#commentsMon, 29 Jun 2015 18:26:29 +0000http://beeinformed.org/?p=11904Compared to viruses, Varroa mites, Nosema, pesticide damage, and the myriad of other problems we are facing, bears (Florida black bears of course) are one of the more (if not the most) straightforward problems beekeepers have in terms of keeping their bees alive. On most occasions a good electric fence will do the trick, but for some reason bears seem to have been more of a problem in Florida than usual. Yards that have never had a problem will be completely destroyed overnight even with a fence. I personally had one of my yards demolished with an electric fence within a fenced pasture. They came back four nights in a row. The bees were gone by the fourth night but the bears broke into my shed and destroyed 700lbs of honey in search of brood that wasn’t there. So why is it that bears seem to more of a problem in recent years? Simple. There’s more of them and with increasing land development and sprawl there is less natural habitat for them to forage.

This serene behemoth was one of the 4 bears that got into my hives in Micanopy, FL in May 2015. He was accompanied by a mama with 2 older cubs. Taken with a game cam by Kendra McKenzie

This menacing brute was responsible for the destruction of one of the Uf’s Honey Bee Lab’s satellite apiaries

According to Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), the black bear population in Florida has increased 30% since 2002, increasing from 2,630 to 3,421. This is a very conservative estimate. With an increase in human/bear interaction, the FWC has been looking for ways to control the population and one of the proposed plans was passed this week: Bear season. Florida has finally joined the 32 other states that have some sort of bear hunting season in place. After much debate and controversy, the plan for a limited season passed on with a 5-1 vote on June 24, 2015, only three years after they were removed from the state’s endangered species list. The season will last one week and is scheduled to start on October 24th and applies to four out of the state’s seven Bear Management Units (BMUs). Map of the BMU’s found here: http://myfwc.com/media/3073898/HuntMapBMU.pdf

In April 2014 bears destroyed an entire yard of 30+ bees belonging to the University of Florida’s Honey Bee Research and Extension Lab. This pic is where the bear tried to dig under the electrified fence. Photo: University of Florida

Some of the wreckage… Photo: University of Florida

Time will tell if this management strategy will be effective in terms of reducing bear problems for Florida bees and their keepers. Every beekeeper has their own method of building bear fences so I will not presume to make suggestions other than hanging bacon or some other treat on the fence. We know that even the best fence might not hold up against a very motivated mama bear, but if anyone has any tried and true tips or tricks or would like to commiserate with a woeful (or successful) bear tale, we’d love for you to share in the comments!

Clover seed is an important crop grown in western Oregon that benefits rom hired honeybee colonies to boost yields. The Willamette Valley has an ideal climate for seed production with high annual rainfalls that allow growing without irrigation but infrequent rains in July and August allow seed to be harvested with limited risk of moisture damage. There are three main types of clover grown for seed in Oregon with all belonging to the Trifolium genus of the Fabaceae family. They are red clover (T. pratense), crimson clover (T. incarnatum) and white or Dutch clover (T. repens). In addition to clovers the Fabaceae family includes other legumes like peas, beans, lentils, soybeans, and alfalfa.

Legumes are nitrogen fixers that produce nutritious forage for livestock as well as being used as green manures. The ability to fix atmospheric Nitrogen (N2) into plant accessible form of Ammonium (NH4) through symbiotic Rhizobia bacteria contained in root nodules allows clovers and other legumes to become rich in plant proteins. Clovers and other legumes are a common inclusion in a crop rotation system through ‘green manuring’ where crops are tilled back into the soil allowing captured Nitrogen to be converted to plant accessible nitrates (NO3) by soil microbes during decomposition. This cycle improves soil fertility for subsequent plantings and helps farmers to maintain higher productivity without increased fertilizer input costs.

It is recommended that a stocking rate of at least two colonies per acre be used to ensure adequate pollination of clover seed crops. White clover and crimson clover, with their relatively short florets are readily worked by honeybees with nectar being relatively easy to attain. Red clover has a longer floral tube, so nectar is not as accessible to honeybees. Bumble bees (Bombus spp.) and other pollinators with longer tongues are better able to access nectar from red clover and are therefore more efficient pollinators but are generally not abundant enough to effectively pollinate large plantings of red clover. Managed honeybees, although not as efficient as bumble bees can do an adequate job of pollinating red clover if there is not too much competing bloom nearby to lure them from red clover plantings. As with all insect pollination, the weather during flowering is hugely influential on the availability of nectar and activity level of insects. Red clover is usually planted in the spring, flowers begins to flower in May and is harvested in late August or September.

White clover field near Shedd, OR

White clover is grown as a perennial in the valley where and it is usually grazed in the autumn after harvesting in August and again in the spring to stress the plants and encourage seed production. Pastures are typically left in white clover for 2-4 years to improve the soil quality and then put into grass seed production. Crimson clover is grown for seed on the foothills around the Willamette valley where it is an autumn sown annual that is harvest in late June. Clover honey is white to pale in color and can be readily creamed through controlling the granulation process. It is one of the most common monofloral honeys available and many consumers enjoy it for its mild floral flavor.

May in the Willamette Valley is a time of lush green fields of grazing pasture and grass seed crops covering the flatlands along the I-5 corridor from Eugene to Portland. These verdant fields are punctuated by small plantings of dense, low growing, brilliantly white flowers, appropriately called Meadowfoam. Meadowfoam (Limnanthes alba) is an annual oilseed crop with a native range from Vancouver Island, BC to northern California. The oil derived from Meadowfoam seeds contains long-chain fatty acids that are very stable relative to other vegetable oils. This resistance to degradation make it a valuable ingredient to prolong shelf life of products and it is of particular value to the cosmetic industry.

Colonies pollination a Meadowfoam field near Corvallis, OR

Meadowfoam pollen is heavy and sticky making it more suitable for insect pollination than wind pollination. Honeybee foragers are able to gather both pollen and nectar from Meadowfoam fields. The recommended stocking rate to maximize production is at least 3 strong colonies per acre. Saturation of pollinators is important to maximize pollination since individual flowers are only receptive to optimum pollination for a 24 hour window. During peak bloom 4-6 million new flowers per acre open on days with favorable weather. Meadowfoam is moderately attractive and there are many other coinciding blooms so it is recommended that colonies be brought in when 5-10% of Meadowfoam flowers are open to discourage bees from seeking competing blooms beyond the boundaries of the target field.

A forager collecting the cream colored pollen

Meadowfoam flowers are self-fertile but they exhibit protrandy with pollen maturing before ovules are receptive to pollination. This offset in timing within individual flowers results in pollen from anthers of one flower being transferred to receptive stigma of another flower. Honeybees foraging for both pollen and nectar are able to accomplish this transfer inadvertently by visiting multiple flowers, with more visits to an individual flowers increasing seed yield. After pollination Meadowfoam is left to mature while seeds develop and the plant matures to a golden color. Meadowfoam is harvested in a similar manner to grass seed with the fields typically being cut and windrowed in late June. After a week of drying, seeds are separated with a combine with reported yields ranging from 400-1200 lbs/acre, with lower yields generally being attributed to poor weather during pollination.

The shape of Meadowfoam flowers encourages foragers to get deep into the flowers facilitating the inadvertent transfer of pollen by bees seeking nectar

Beekeepers that pollinate Meadowfoam harvest supers immediately after pollination to produce a high quality monofloral honey that is unique to the Willamette Valley and fetches a premium retail price at local markets. Meadowfoam honey is amber in color and has a very distinct ‘toasted marshmallow’ flavor that is unlike any other honey I’ve come across.

1 Department of Entomology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742
2 Department of Entomology, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN 55108
3 United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Beltsville, MD
4 Department of Entomology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh NC 276955 Department of Entomology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 778436 Department of Horticulture, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 973317 Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 379968 Department of Computer Science, Appalachian State University, Boone, NC 286089 Department of Entomology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 3060210 United States Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Riverdale, MD

Note: This is a preliminary analysis. Sample sizes and estimates are likely to change.A more detailed final report is being prepared for publication in a peer-reviewed journal at a later date.

The Bee Informed Partnership (http://beeinformed.org), in collaboration with the Apiary Inspectors of America (AIA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), is releasing preliminary results for the ninth annual national survey of honey bee colony losses. For the 2014/2015 winter season, a preliminary 6,128 beekeepers in the United States provided valid responses. Collectively, these beekeepers managed 398,247 colonies in October 2014, representing about 14.5% of the country’s estimated 2.74 million managed honey bee colonies1.

About two-thirds of the respondents (67.2%) experienced winter colony loss rates greater than the average self-reported acceptable winter mortality rate of 18.7%. Preliminary results estimate that a total of 23.1% of the colonies managed in the Unites States were lost over the 2014/2015 winter. This would represent a decrease in losses of 0.6% compared to the previous 2013/2014 winter, which had reported a total loss estimated at 23.7%. This is the second year in a row the reported colony loss rate was notably lower than the 9-year average total loss of 28.7% (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Summary of the total colony losses overwinter (October 1 – April 1) and over the year (April 1 – April 1) of managed honey bee colonies in the United States. The acceptable range is the average percentage of acceptable colony losses declared by the survey participants in each of the nine years of the survey. Winter and Annual losses are calculated based on different respondent pools.

Beekeepers do not only lose colonies in the winter but also throughout the summer, sometimes at significant levels. To quantify this claim of non-winter colony mortality of surveyed beekeepers, we have included summer and annual colony losses since 2010/2011. In the summer of 2014 (April – October), colony losses surpassed winter losses at 27.4% (totalsummer loss). This compares to summer losses of 19.8% in 2013. Importantly, commercial beekeepers appear to consistently lose greater numbers of colonies over the summer months than over the winter months, whereas the opposite seems true for smaller-scale beekeepers. Responding beekeepers reported losing 42.1% of the total number of colonies managed over the last year (total annual loss, between April 2014 and April 2015). This represents the second highest annual loss recorded to date.

As in previous years, colony losses were not consistent across the country, with annual losses exceeding 60% in several states, while Hawaii reported the lowest total annual colony loss of ~14% (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Total annual loss (%) 2014-2015 by state. Respondents who managed colonies in more than one state had all of their colonies counted in each state in which they reported managing colonies. Data for states with fewer than five respondents are withheld.

This survey was conducted by the Bee Informed Partnership, which receives a majority of its funding from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, USDA (award number: 2011-67007-20017).

1 Based on NASS 2015 figures2 Previous survey results found a total colony loss in the winters of 24% in the winter of 2013/2014, 30% in 2012/2013, 22% in 2011/2012, 30% in 2010/2011, 32% in 2009/2010, 29% in 2008/2009, 36% in 2007/2008, and 32% in 2006/2007 (see reference list).